Killing Hope (Gabe Quinn Thriller) (47 page)

She hadn’t seen the old guy snooping around in the dark outside her bedroom window.

But she heard my cell phone as it sang as loud as a siren.

133

^{___________________________}

I jammed a hand in my pocket. Fumbled for the off switch. Finally found it and stopped the infernal thing from ringing.

Rochelle was looking straight at me.

I receded into shadow, heart pounding.

She came towards the window, trying to see out into the darkness. Brow creased. Eyes narrowed.

I took another step back onto loose shingle.

Rochelle looked right at me.

I held my breath.

She cupped a hand against the glass. Peered through.

I saw her eyes widen.

Then something like a freight train hit me from behind. Catapulting me into the cement-rendered wall. The air whooshed from my lungs. Stars spangled behind my eyelids. I felt something hard dig into the back of my neck. Pressing my face into the rough rendering. Felt skin scuff off. Heard my nose creak, then crack.

‘Fucking peeping Tom.’

It was a man’s voice: loud in my ear, angry, gravelly. Hot breath that reeked of beer. The guy fisted me in the right kidney, hard. The pain was excruciating. I couldn’t blame him; I’d have done the same. I tried to yelp as the pain exploded across my back. But my lungs were still pancaked. And I wasn’t going anywhere.

Another punch. Lightning bolts zigzagged in my eyes.

The pain was immense.

Instinctively, I swung an arm around. Felt my elbow connect with my attacker’s ribs. Heard foul breath loose from lips. For a split second his weight eased off. I took advantage. Swung my arm again – this time higher, harder, aiming for the face. My elbow struck bone. Pain ricocheted up my arm. My attacker stumbled backwards, groaning, clutching at his busted nose.

I spun round and sucked in air.

‘I’m the police.’ I gasped.

I couldn’t make out his features in the darkness. He was heavier than me by thirty pounds, I reckoned. A few inches taller. Probably in better shape.

‘I know.’ He said, snorting out blood.

I went for my weapon.

He came at me like a charging bull.

The air went out of me a second time as his head plunged into my stomach. My shoulders crunched the wall. More scuffed skin. I tried bringing up a knee. Anything to dislodge him. Missed. He punched me in the groin for my efforts. Tears sprang in my eyes. I brought both hands in, flat, towards the sides of his neck. It was a move I’d seen in a Steven Segal movie. It ought to have knocked him out cold. It didn’t. So much for my years of martial arts training in front of the TV. The guy pummeled me some more for my troubles. I couldn’t breathe. My whole body was aflame with pain. I tried to stamp on his foot. Dig my fingers into his face. Anything to get the Doberman off. This wasn’t Queensbury Rules. This was survival. I used the wall as leverage. Managed to heave him back onto the gravel bed.

He slugged me right between the eyes.

I saw the elbow come up. The fist curl into a wrecking ball. The arm straighten like a piston. Nothing I could do about it.

My head rocked back like a punching ball. Rebounded off the wall with a
crack
. Heard vertebrae pop in my neck.

The son of a bitch went for the early knockout. The elbow came up again. The fist curled. But somehow I managed to twist as the arm straightened like a piston. And my attacker’s fist hit the wall next to my ear. The shock to his system was enough to let me throw full weight into him.

We locked antlers like competing stags.

Then we were spinning around the gravel yard. Engaged. Embraced. Alternating leads. Fred and Ginger would have been proud. Neither of us could let go. Round and round we went, struggling for dominancy. Kicking up gravel. Sparks flying.

Our energies were sapping. Mine quicker, it seemed.

I had a tiger by the tail. We both knew it.

Let go and I was dead.

Round and round we went. Grappling for eyeballs. Soft flesh. Stamping at feet.

The blood in my muscles had become battery acid.

My foot snagged the water hose. The guy leaned into me. I stumbled. He tried a head butt. Missed. We collided with a stand of Yuccas. I went over, backwards. Took on needles. My attacker came with me. Coming down like a brick wall. Knees digging into my shoulders. Pinning me to the broken stone. Then he started hitting me in the face:
bam, bam, bam
. Like a baker pummeling dough. Each blow sending sparks crackling through my brain

In the movies, this is where the good guy would normally catapult the bad guy off. Reverse roles. Overcome him. Then throw on the cuffs. March him back to the Precinct for processing. But this was real life and I was beat. I was out of breath. Out of shape. And out of moves. Worst of all, my attacker knew it. He socked me in the mouth one last time and I gagged on blood.

‘You don’t know when to leave well alone, do you?’

He sounded southern. The Alabama plates made sense. A mixture of spittle and blood drizzled my face. Some of it spluttering up from my own busted lips.

I gazed up at him through dazed eyes. Trying to make out his features in the darkness. All I could see was a mop of unruly hair blocking out stars.

I felt him rummage under my coat. Lamely, I tried to stop him. He knocked my hands aside. He took out my Glock. I was powerless. At his mercy. I had a sudden thought that this was it: I was going to die here in the backyard of Rochelle’s place. On a freezing Nevada night. At the hands of a drunken brawler.

The muzzle pressed against my cheek. Cold. Hard. My attacker brought his face down next to mine. He was gasping. Sweating.

‘Stop looking for me.’

He breathed beer and something like chewing tobacco into my face.

‘You hear me, Quinn? I said stop looking for me. It’s over. Don’t come after me. I know where your children live.’

My strength was gone. I was a dead fish. Flapping around on deck. Landed. I couldn’t compute his words. Couldn’t do a damned thing. I was numb with pain. Muscles on fire. Beat.

I saw him clamber to his feet. Step back. Catch his breath. Look down at my pathetic broken body. Then walk away.

Through ringing ears I heard him argue with Rochelle out of sight. Somewhere down the side of the house. Heard the pick-up rumble into life. Heard it reverse at speed out of the driveway. Then tear down the street on screeching tires.

I stared up at the star-spattered sky, breathing blood.

I was sore, but I was alive.

I still couldn’t move, but that would return.

Then a woman’s silhouette appeared above me.

‘Rochelle?’ I gasped. ‘Call nine-one-one.’

‘Fucker, you gotta be kidding me.’ She said as she stamped on my face.

134

^{___________________________}

The theater was packed out to bursting. This was obviously a popular show despite the extortionate entrance fee. The killer known only to himself as Randall Fisk was slouching in his seat. Thinking inconspicuous.

An expectant hush was settling over the excitable audience. Dry ice seeping in from the edges of the stage as the lights went down. One or two people murmuring in awe.

He could see patterns in the mist. Ignored them. Had learned long ago what was wheat and what was chaff.

A barely-audible undulation sounded from the in-house speaker system, slowly gaining volume.

It sounded like somebody breathing.

A single funnel of brilliant blue light pierced the packed auditorium. Radiating from the back of the stage. Roaming across the glassy-eyed audience like the beam from a lighthouse. Faster and faster it went, sweeping to and fro, flickering to the quickening pulse of the soundtrack.

The audience was mesmerized.

Not he.

A few flashing lights and some fancy music and
hey presto
they were all spellbound by the low-budget lightshow.

A deafening thunderclap exploded through the theater. The stage lit up in blinding blue light. The hypnotized audience erupted into crazy applause.

The killer shook his head.

Onstage, a world-famous magician and illusionist had appeared as if by magic in a cone of white light. His pristine white suit and cape shone like freshly-laid snow. To one side, in a less self-centered beam of light, was a blonde-haired woman dressed in a long, white skin-tight dress, split at the side from ankle to hip.

Behind them, glistening against a backdrop of twinkling stars, stood a glass box as big as a
Greyhound
bus. It hadn’t been there a moment earlier. Smoke and mirrors.

The soundtrack kicked back in. It sounded like computerized rain. Broken glass falling against sheet metal.

The world-famous illusionist and his lovely assistant started cavorting around the big glass box. Stirring up eddies in the dry ice. Look: nothing inside. No mirrors. No hidden trapdoors. Nothing but fresh air. Aren’t we special?

A large Stars-and-Stripes flag began to descend from the dark rafters above. It was
big
. Bigger than the glass box.

Throughout the theater people were
ooh
ing and
ahh
ing with patriotic fervor.

Then, as the flag completely covered the stage, the music stopped, plunging the auditorium back into expectant silence.

He could hear his or someone else’s heart thudding.

Every unblinking eye was on the world-famous illusionist.

Like a master craftsman he played his part to perfection.

In a unison, the illusionist and his girl grabbed the flag at either end and dramatically ripped it down to the stage.

A wave of stunned amazement swept through the theater.

No one could believe their eyes.